Born in 1923 in Ratzenried near Wangen in the Allgäu, Oskar Kolb was trained as a painter by O. Briegel in Wangen and, after his military service, attended the master school of the painter's trade in Reutlingen. In 1949 he settled in Wiesbaden and attended evening classes at the Werkkunstschule Wiesbaden, first becoming assistant to Vincent Weber, then head of the painting department and lecturer at the Fachhochschule Wiesbaden (Hochschule RheinMain), into which the Werkkunstschule was merged in 1971. He taught there as a professor in the design department until 1980. From 1981, he was head of the department of art appreciation at the Wiesbaden School of Fine Arts until the 1990s.